The mural of the hawk child at Lafayette Park is almost hidden from the bustle of Wilshire Boulevard, but its message resonates throughout the neighborhood.
In many ways, the mural is part folktale and part time capsule. It shows immigrant children at leisure, enjoying the public space, surrounded by California native plants like Monja blanca, California poppy, arroyo lupine and turkey tail mushrooms. The child at the center wears the wings of the migratory Swainson’s hawk and relaxes in a pair of Air Jordans.
Oaxacan printmaker Pável Acevedo created the mural with help from Salvadoran American artist Katie Mejia and a group of local students, with the germ of the idea fleshed out over the summer.
Before the first paintbrush touched the wall, the artists met with students during a six-week summer camp at the Heart of LA, a nonprofit organization that provides after-school programming in MacArthur Park and South LA.
Students created stencils, learned how murals can immortalize a subject, how plants and animals migrate and they journaled about what they hoped to bring to their community with their art.
Then they posed for the work, to be immortalized themselves.
For 12-year-old Alexis Lopez, the mural felt like an extension of his love for art and his community. While the other students hesitated to pose as the main subject, Alexis jumped at the opportunity.
“Because it’s so cool to know that you’re up there. Looking over, like, everything,” said Alexis, who lives in nearby Koreatown. “I want people to know I was here.”
The mural was done in collaboration with several partners including the AMBOS Project, a femme-led binational artist collective that documents the border, while centering mutual aid and community activism.
The mural is part of a larger project called “Markings / Huellas” and led by cityLAB-UCLA. The goal is to record the stories of the Indigenous communities in Westlake and Pico Union, including native speakers of Maya K’iche’, Maya Q’anjob’al and various Zapotec dialects.
The project also involves participation from several Indigenous organizations, including Casa de la Cultura Maya, Maya Vision, Regional de Oaxaca and Mundo Maya Foundation.
“It is a project that is about inscribing Indigenous immigrant voices in a multitude of different ways,” Heart of LA Senior Creative Director Nara Hernandez said.
“Markings/Huellas” will include public art, an oral history series and other exhibits around the neighborhood.
‘Do nothing and just dream like the children’
For artist Acevedo, it was important to celebrate leisure via the Lafayette Park mural.
In an era when federal immigration raids have disrupted the daily lives of people in and around the neighborhood, when immigrants are often measured by how hard they work, the mere act of relaxing is worth celebrating, he said.
“Sometimes we just want to rest,” said Acevedo about immigrants. Students who are first-generation citizens or who have just arrived in the US are often burdened with the expectation of what they can accomplish.
“All that you have to do, all that you have to prove in order to be validated,” Acevedo said. “I feel like being an immigrant, you have to do something, everything. What about doing the opposite? Do nothing and just dream like the children.”
The Swainson’s hawk is prominently featured in the work. It has one of the longest migration routes of a raptor, traveling across South and Central America, the western U.S. and Canada.
“We were thinking about birds as a placeholder for people as well, and how we’re all welcome here in this community,” AMBOS Project co-founder Natalie Godinez said about the Westlake and Pico Union neighborhoods.
The frolicking children in the mural embody plants, petals ring their necks and spores sprout from their clothes. Artist Mejia wanted the children to look as though they were being taken over by the plants, but also paid close attention to their outfits.
“It was important to get all those details just right,” Mejia said. “Because that’s so important to them at this age.”
‘Todas las aves son bienvenidas aquí‘
While the mural is whimsical in many ways, it’s also grounded in reality with its intended message.
“Markings/Huellas” Project Associate Director Lili Flores Aguilar added it’s important the mural feature text translated from Spanish into Maya K’iche’ and Yatzachi Zapotec.
“We want the written text there so anyone who makes that journey to Lafayette and arrives to see it, they can take pride in their language,” Flores said.
The mural is titled “Todas las aves son bienvenidas aquí/All birds are welcome here.”
In the mural, the character modeled after Alexis reads from the texts in K’iche’ and Yatzachi that says, “All birds are welcome here. I’m not an essential worker. I’m a dreamer.”
